This opportunity, therefore, ought not to be allowed to pass for letting Italy at last see her liberator appear. Nor can one express the love with which he would be received in all those provinces which have suffered so much from these foreign scourings, with what thirst for revenge, with what stubborn faith, with what devotion, with what tears. What door would be closed to him? Who would refuse obedience to him? What envy would hinder him? What Italian would refuse him homage? To all of us this barbarous dominion stinks. Let, therefore, your illustrious house take up this charge with that courage and hope with which all just enterprises are undertaken, so that under its standard our native country may be ennobled, and under its auspices may be verified that saying of Petrarch:
A complete list of Landor's writings, published or privately printed, in English, Latin and Italian, including pamphlets, fly-sheets and occasional newspaper correspondence on political or literary questions, it would be difficult to give anywhere and impossible to give here. From nineteen almost to ninety his intellectual and literary activity was indefatigably incessant; but, herein at least like Charles Lamb, whose cordial admiration he so cordially returned, he could not write a note of three lines which did not bear the mark of his "Roman hand" in its matchless and inimitable command of a style at once the most powerful and the purest of his age. The one charge which can ever seriously be brought and maintained against it is that of such occasional obscurity or difficulty as may arise from excessive strictness in condensation of phrase and expurgation of matter not always superfluous, and sometimes almost indispensable. His English prose and his Latin verse are perhaps more frequently and more gravely liable to this charge than either his English verse or his Latin prose. At times it is well-nigh impossible for an eye less keen and swift, a scholarship less exquisite and ready than his own, to catch the precise direction and follow the perfect course of his rapid thought and radiant utterance. This apparently studious pursuit and preference of the most terse and elliptic expression which could be found for anything he might have to say could not but occasionally make even so sovereign a master of two great languages appear "dark with excess of light"; but from no former master of either tongue in prose or verse was ever the quality of real obscurity, of loose and nebulous incertitude, more utterly alien or more naturally remote. There is nothing of cloud or fog about the path on which he leads us; but we feel now and then the want of a bridge or a handrail; we have to leap from point to point of narrative or argument without the usual help of a connecting plank. Even in his dramatic works, where least of all it should have been found, this lack of visible connexion or sequence in details of thought or action is too often a source of sensible perplexity. In his noble trilogy on the history of Giovanna queen of Naples it is sometimes actually difficult to realize on a first reading what has happened or is happening, or how, or why, or by what agency--a defect alone sufficient, but unhappily sufficient in itself, to explain the too general ignorance of a work so rich in subtle and noble treatment of character, so sure and strong in its grasp and rendering of "high actions and high passions," so rich in humour and in pathos, so royally serene in its commanding power upon the tragic mainsprings of terror and of pity. As a poet, he may be said on the whole to stand midway between Byron and Shelley--about as far above the former as below the latter. If we except Catullus and Simonides, it might be hard to match and it would be impossible to overmatch the flawless and blameless yet living and breathing beauty of his most perfect elegies, epigrams or epitaphs. As truly as prettily was he likened by Leigh Hunt "to a stormy mountain pine which should produce lilies." His passionate compassion, his bitter and burning pity for all wrongs endured in all the world, found only their natural and inevitable outlet in his lifelong defence or advocacy of tyrannicide as the last resource of baffled justice, the last discharge of heroic duty. His tender and ardent love of children, of animals and of flowers makes fragrant alike the pages of his writing and the records of his life. He was as surely the most gentle and generous as the most headstrong and hot-headed of heroes or of men. Nor ever was any man's best work more thoroughly imbued and informed with evidence of his noblest qualities. His loyalty and liberality of heart were as inexhaustible as his bounty and beneficence of hand. Praise and encouragement, deserved or undeserved, came yet more readily to his lips than challenge or defiance. Reviled and ridiculed by Lord Byron, he retorted on the offender living less readily and less warmly than he lamented and extolled him dead. On the noble dramatic works of his brother Robert he lavished a magnificence of sympathetic praise which his utmost self-estimate would never have exacted for his own. Age and the lapse of time could neither heighten nor lessen the fulness of this rich and ready generosity. To the poets of his own and of the next generation he was not readier to do honour than to those of a later growth, and not seldom of deserts far lower and far lesser claims than theirs. That he was not unconscious of his own, and avowed it with the frank simplicity of nobler times, is not more evident or more certain than that in comparison with his friends and fellows he was liable rather to undervalue than to overrate himself. He was a classic, and no formalist; the wide range of his just and loyal admiration had room for a genius so far from classical as Blake's. Nor in his own highest mood or method of creative as of critical work was he a classic only, in any narrow or exclusive sense of the term. On either side, immediately or hardly below his mighty masterpiece of _Pericles and Aspasia_, stand the two scarcely less beautiful and vivid studies of medieval Italy and Shakespearean England. The very finest flower of his immortal dialogues is probably to be found in the single volume comprising only "Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans"; his utmost command of passion and pathos may be tested by its transcendent success in the distilled and concentrated tragedy of _Tiberius and Vipsania_, where for once he shows a quality more proper to romantic than classical imagination--the subtle and sublime and terrible power to enter the dark vestibule of distraction, to throw the whole force of his fancy, the whole fire of his spirit, into the "shadowing passion" (as Shakespeare calls it) of gradually imminent insanity. Yet, if this and all other studies from ancient history or legend could be subtracted from the volume of his work, enough would be left whereon to rest the foundation of a fame which time could not sensibly impair. (A. C. S.) Entry: A
It was a matter of course that remnants of the ancient popular dramatic entertainments should have survived in particular abundance on Italian soil. They were to be recognized in the improvised farces performed at the courts, in the churches (_farse spirituali_), and among the people; the Roman carnival had preserved its wagon-plays, and various links remained to connect the modern comic drama of the Italians with the _Atellanes_ and _mimes_ of their ancestors. But the more notable later comic developments, which belong to the 16th century, will be more appropriately noticed below. Moralities proper had not flourished in Italy, where the love of the concrete has always been dominant in popular taste; more numerous are examples of scenes, largely mythological, in which the influence of the Renaissance is already perceptible, of eclogues, and of allegorical festival-plays of various sorts. Entry: 10
HENRY VII. (c. 1269-1313), Roman emperor, son of Henry III., count of Luxemburg, was knighted by Philip IV., king of France, and passed his early days under French influences, while the French language was his mother-tongue. His father was killed in battle in 1288, and Henry ruled his tiny inheritance with justice and prudence, but came into collision with the citizens of Trier over a question of tolls. In 1292 he married Margaret (d. 1311), daughter of John I., duke of Brabant, and after the death of the German king, Albert I., he was elected to the vacant throne on the 27th of November 1308. Recognized at once by the German princes and by Pope Clement V., the aspirations of the new king turned to Italy, where he hoped by restoring the imperial authority to prepare the way for the conquest of the Holy Land. Meanwhile he strove to secure his position in Germany. The Rhenish archbishops were pacified by the restoration of the Rhine tolls, negotiations were begun with Philip IV., king of France, and with Robert, king of Naples, and the Habsburgs were confirmed in their possessions. At this time Bohemia was ruled by Henry V., duke of Carinthia, but the terrible disorder which prevailed induced some of the Bohemians to offer the crown, together with the hand of Elizabeth, daughter of the late king Wenceslas II., to John, the son of the German king. Henry accepted the offer, and in August 1310 John was invested with Bohemia and his marriage was celebrated. Before John's coronation at Prague, however, in February 1311, Henry had crossed the Alps. His hopes of reuniting Germany and Italy and of restoring the empire of the Hohenstaufen were flattered by an appeal from the Ghibellines to come to their assistance, and by the fact that many Italians, sharing the sentiments expressed by Dante in his _De Monarchia_, looked eagerly for a restoration of the imperial authority. In October 1310 he reached Turin where, on receiving the homage of the Lombard cities, he declared that he favoured neither Guelphs nor Ghibellines, but only sought to impose peace. Having entered Milan he placed the Lombard crown upon his head on the 6th of January 1311. But trouble soon showed itself. His poverty compelled him to exact money from the citizens; the peaceful professions of the Guelphs were insincere, and Robert, king of Naples, watched his progress with suspicion. Florence was fortified against him, and the mutual hatred of Guelph and Ghibelline was easily renewed. Risings took place in various places and, after the capture of Brescia, Henry marched to Rome only to find the city in the hands of the Guelphs and the troops of King Robert. Some street fighting ensued, and the king, unable to obtain possession of St Peter's, was crowned emperor on the 29th of June 1312 in the church of St John Lateran by some cardinals who declared they only acted under compulsion. Failing to subdue Florence, the emperor from his headquarters at Pisa prepared to attack Robert of Naples, for which purpose he had allied himself with Frederick III., king of Sicily. But Clement, anxious to protect Robert, threatened Henry with excommunication. Undeterred by the threat the emperor collected fresh forces, made an alliance with the Venetians, and set out for Naples. On the march he was, however, taken ill, and died at Buonconvento near Siena on the 24th of August 1313, and was buried at Pisa. His death was attributed, probably without reason, to poison given him by a Dominican friar in the sacramental wine. Henry is described by his contemporary Albertino Mussato, in the _Historia Augusta_, as a handsome man, of well-proportioned figure, with reddish hair and arched eyebrows, but disfigured by a squint. He adds, among other details, that he was slow and laconic in his speech, magnanimous and devout, but impatient of any compacts with his subjects, loathing the mention of the Guelph and Ghibelline factions, and insisting on the absolute authority of the Empire over all (_cuncta absoluto complectens Imperio_). He was, however, a lover of justice, and as a knight both bold and skilful. He was hailed by Dante as the deliverer of Italy, and in the _Paradiso_ the poet reserved for him a place marked by a crown. Entry: HENRY
In character Charles stands high among contemporary princes. It consists of pairs of contrasts, but the better side is usually stronger than the worse. Steadfast honesty of purpose was occasionally warped by self-interest, or rather he was apt to think that his own course must needs be that of righteousness. Self-control would give way, but very rarely, to squalls of passion. Obstinacy and irresolution were fairly balanced, the former generally bearing upon ends, the latter upon means. His own ideals were constant, but he could gradually assimilate the views of others, and could bend to argument and circumstance; yet even here he had a habit of harking back to earlier schemes which he had seemed to have definitely abandoned. Intercourse with different nationalities taught him a certain versatility; he was dignified with Spaniards, familiar with Flemings, while the material Italians were pleased with his good sense. His sympathies were neither wide nor quick, but he was a most faithful friend, and the most considerate of masters. For all who sought him his courtesy and patience were unfailing. At his abdication he dwelt with reasonable pride upon his labours and his journeyings. Few monarchs have lived a more strenuous life. Yet his industry was broken by fits of indolence, which were probably due to health. In his prime his confessor warned him against this defect, and it caused, indeed, the last great disaster of his life. Fortunately he was conscious of his obstinacy, his irresolution and his indolence. He would accept admonition from the chapter of the Golden Fleece, would comment on his failings as a warning to his son. When Cardinal Contarini politely assured him that to hold fast to good opinions is not obstinacy but firmness, the emperor replied, "Ah! but I sometimes stick to bad ones." Charles was not cruel, indeed the character of his reign was peculiarly merciful. But he was somewhat unforgiving. He especially resented any slight upon his honour, and his unwise severity to Philip of Hesse was probably due to the unfounded accusation that he had imprisoned him in violation of his pledge. The excesses of his troops in Italy, in Guelders and on the Austrian frontiers caused him acute pain, although he called himself "hard to weep." No great nobleman, statesman or financier was executed at Charles's order. He was proud of his generalship, classing himself with Alva and Montmorenci as the best of his day. Yet his failures nearly balanced his successes. It is true that in his most important campaign, that against the League of Schmalkalden, the main credit must be ascribed to his well-judged audacity at the opening, and his dogged persistency at the close. As a soldier he must rank very high. It was said that his being emperor lost to Spain the best light horseman of her army. At every crisis he was admirably cool, setting a truly royal example to his men. His mettle was displayed when he was attacked on the burning sands of Tunis, when his troops were driven in panic from Algiers, when in spite of physical suffering he forded the Elbe at Mühlberg, and when he was bombarded by the vastly superior Lutheran artillery under the walls of Ingolstadt. When blamed for exposing himself on this last occasion, "I could not help it," he apologized; "we were short of hands, 1 could not set a bad example." Nevertheless he was by nature timid. Just before this very action he had a fit of trembling, and he was afraid of mice and spiders. The force of his example was not confined to the field. Melanchthon wrote from Augsburg in 1530 that he was a model of continence, temperance and moderation, that the old domestic discipline was now only preserved in the imperial household. He tenderly loved his wife, whom he had married for pecuniary and diplomatic reasons. Of his two well-known illegitimate children, Margaret was born before he married, and Don John long after his wife's death, but he felt this latter to be a child of shame. His sobriety was frequently contrasted with the universal drunkenness of the German and Flemish nobles, which he earnestly condemned. But on his appetite he could place no control, in spite of the ruinous effects of his gluttony upon his health. In dress, in his household, and in his stable he was simple and economical. He loved children, flowers, animals and birds. Professional jesters amused him, and he was not above a joke himself. Maps and mechanical inventions greatly interested him, and in later life he became fond of reading. He takes his place indeed among authors, for he dictated the commentaries on his own career. Of music he possessed a really fine knowledge, and his high appreciation of Titian proves the purity of his feeling for art. The little collection of books and pictures which he carried to Yuste is an index of his tastes. Charles was undeniably plain. He confessed that he was by nature ugly, but that as artists usually painted him uglier than he was, strangers on seeing him were agreeably disappointed. The protruding lower jaw and the thin pale face were redeemed by the fine open brow and the bright speaking eyes. He was, moreover, well made, and in youth had an incomparable leg. Above all no man could doubt his dignity; Charles was every inch an emperor. Entry: CHARLES
Besides the revolutionists and republicans who promoted conspiracy and insurrection whenever possible, and the moderates or "Neo-Guelphs," as Gioberti's followers were called, we must mention the Italian exiles who were learning the art of war in foreign countries--in Spain, in Greece, in Poland, in South America--and those other exiles who, in Paris or London, eked out a bare subsistence by teaching Italian or by their pen, and laid the foundations of that love of Italy which, especially in England, eventually brought the weight of diplomacy into the scales for Italian freedom. All these forces were equally necessary--the revolutionists to keep up agitation and make government by bayonets impossible; the moderates to curb the impetuosity of the revolutionists and to present a scheme of society that was neither reactionary nor anarchical; the volunteers abroad to gain military experience; and the more peaceful exiles to spread the name of Italy among foreign peoples. All the while a vast amount of revolutionary literature was being printed in Switzerland, France and England, and smuggled into Italy; the poet Giusti satirized the Italian princes, the dramatist G. B. Niccolini blasted tyranny in his tragedies, the novelist Guerrazzi re-evoked the memories of the last struggle for Florentine freedom in _L'Assedio di Firenze_, and Verdi's operas bristled with political _double entendres_ which escaped the censor but were understood and applauded by the audience. Entry: E
GÉRÔME, JEAN LÉON (1824-1904), French painter, was born on the 11th of May 1824 at Vesoul (Haute-Saône). He went to Paris in 1841 and worked under Paul Delaroche, whom he accompanied to Italy (1844-1845). On his return he exhibited "The Cock-fight," which gained him a third-class medal in the Salon of 1847. "The Virgin with Christ and St John" and "Anacreon, Bacchus and Cupid" took a second-class medal in 1848. He exhibited "Bacchus and Love, Drunk," a "Greek Interior" and "Souvenir d'Italie," in 1851; "Paestum" (1852); and "An Idyll" (1853). In 1854 Gérôme made a journey to Turkey and the shores of the Danube, and in 1857 visited Egypt. To the exhibition of 1855 he contributed a "Pifferaro," a "Shepherd," "A Russian Concert" and a large historical canvas, "The Age of Augustus and the Birth of Christ." The last was somewhat confused in effect, but in recognition of its consummate ability the State purchased it. Gérôme's reputation was greatly enhanced at the Salon of 1857 by a collection of works of a more popular kind: the "Duel: after a Masquerade," "Egyptian Recruits crossing the Desert," "Memnon and Sesostris" and "Camels Watering," the drawing of which was criticized by Edmond About. In "Caesar" (1859) Gérôme tried to return to a severer class of work, but the picture failed to interest the public. "Phryne before the Areopagus," "Le Roi Candaule" and "Socrates finding Alcibiades in the House of Aspasia" (1861) gave rise to some scandal by reason of the subjects selected by the painter, and brought down on him the bitter attacks of Paul de Saint-Victor and Maxime Ducamp. At the same Salon he exhibited the "Egyptian chopping Straw," and "Rembrandt biting an Etching," two very minutely finished works. Gérôme's best paintings are of Eastern subjects; among these may be named the "Turkish Prisoner" and "Turkish Butcher" (1863); "Prayer" (1865); "The Slave Market" (1867); and "The Harem out Driving" (1869). He often illustrated history, as in "Louis XIV. and Molière" (1863); "The Reception of the Siamese Ambassadors at Fontainebleau" (1865); and the "Death of Marshal Ney" (1868). Gérôme was also successful as a sculptor; he executed, among other works, "Omphale" (1887), and the statue of the duc d'Aumale which stands in front of the château of Chantilly (1899). His "Bellona" (1892), in ivory, metal, and precious stones, which was also exhibited in the Royal Academy of London, attracted great attention. The artist then began an interesting series of "Conquerors," wrought in gold, silver and gems--"Bonaparte entering Cairo" (1897); "Tamerlane" (1898); and "Frederick the Great" (1899). Gérôme was elected member of the Institut in 1865. He died in 1904. Entry: GÉRÔME
About this time du Bellay had a serious illness of two years' duration, from which dates the beginning of his deafness. He had further anxieties in the guardianship of his nephew. The boy died in 1553, and Joachim, who had up to this time borne the title of sieur de Liré, became seigneur of Gonnor. In 1549 he had published a _Recueil de poësies_ dedicated to the Princess Marguerite. This was followed in 1552 by a version of the fourth book of the _Aeneid_, with other translations and some occasional poems. In the next year he went to Rome as one of the secretaries of Cardinal du Bellay. To the beginning of his four and a half years' residence in Italy belong the forty-seven sonnets of his _Antiquités de Rome_, which were rendered into English by Edmund Spenser (_The Ruins of Rome_, 1591). These sonnets were more personal and less imitative than the _Olive_ sequence, and struck a note which was revived in later French literature by Volney and Chateaubriand. His stay in Rome was, however, a real exile. His duties were those of an intendant. He had to meet the cardinal's creditors and to find money for the expenses of the household. Nevertheless he found many friends among Italian scholars, and formed a close friendship with another exiled poet whose circumstances were similar to his own, Olivier de Magny. Towards the end of his sojourn in Rome he fell violently in love with a Roman lady called Faustine, who appears in his poetry as Columba and Columbelle. This passion finds its clearest expression in the Latin poems. Faustine was guarded by an old and jealous husband, and du Bellay's eventual conquest may have had something to do with his departure for Paris at the end of August 1557. In the next year he published the poems he had brought back with him from Rome, the Latin _Poemata_, the _Antiquités de Rome_, the _Jeux rustiques_, and the 191 sonnets of the _Regrets_, the greater number of which were written in Italy. The _Regrets_ show that he had advanced far beyond the theories of the _Deffence_. The simplicity and tenderness specially characteristic of du Bellay appear in the sonnets telling of his unlucky passion for Faustine, and of his nostalgia for the banks of the Loire. Among them are some satirical sonnets describing Roman manners, and the later ones written after his return to Paris are often appeals for patronage. His intimate relations with Ronsard were not renewed; but he formed a close friendship with the scholar Jean de Morel, whose house was the centre of a learned society. In 1559 du Bellay published at Poitiers _La Nouvelle Manière de faire son profit des lettres_, a satirical epistle translated from the Latin of Adrien Turnèbe, and with it _Le Poète courtisan_, which introduced the formal satire into French poetry. These were published under the pseudonym of J. Quintil du Troussay, and the courtier-poet was generally supposed to be Melin de Saint-Gelais, with whom du Bellay had always, however, been on friendly terms. Entry: DU